Pro player Yuki Lee Bender breaks down hercompetitive Viserai, the Forsaken Classic Constructed decklist, complete with sideboard and matchup tips. When a new hero hits the track, the pros get you up to speed with Zero to Eighty!
Viserai, the Forsaken is one of the brand new heroes from Usurp the Shadow Throne and perhaps one of the most exciting heroes released in all of Flesh and Blood history. Not only is Viserai one of Flesh and Blood’s most iconic heroes to hit Living Legend status, but he has also made a grand return by slaying Chane, taking Ursur’s powers, and leading the shadow horde to conquer Rathe! As a big fan of Viserai, Rune Blood from back in Arcane Rising, It is a great honor to get to share with you my early thoughts on Viserai, the Forsaken. One of the things I love most about the design of Viserai, the Forsaken is that even just from reading his hero textbox, he feels like a combination of both Viserai and Chane, and simply feels powerful.
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Additionally, there are a staggering number of directions you can build Viserai towards, as he enjoys an extremely well fleshed out card pool, and I definitely have not had time to explore all of them yet. I believe Viserai, the Forsaken is one of the most complex heroes Flesh and Blood has ever seen, both to build and to play. This is to say, that I believe builds will continue to develop for months, and fully figuring out what Viserai is capable of will likely take a fair bit of time. In my time building and playing him, I feel like I am constantly learning new things and struck with new possible deckbuilding ideas and directions. So far, options for deckbuilding include usurp focused decks, rune gate focused decks, Rift Bind focused decks, and even Dread Scythe fatigue decks looking to leverage the combination of Dimenxxional Ferryman and Fallen Herald.
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This particular decklist will focus on my current best guess as to how to build Viserai, the Forsaken, which is a hybrid usurp / rune gate deck that looks to leverage the most powerful cards of each archetype. This allows us to enjoy a balance of the incredible efficiency rune gate attacks have to offer, while also offsetting some of their strict Runechant requirements with usurp cards, which have no requirements to be played from the banished zone. This list is built to traverse between both sides frequently and to leverage the extra cards in our banished zone to create very powerful offensive turns that also disrupt our opponents.
Dorinthea Pão de Queijo · Sep 25 · 71 min read0 likes00 comments0
First, we will look at what Viserai does, what he asks of us in deckbuilding, and which cards and equipment we have chosen to fulfill those needs. Next, we will discuss how to play Viserai, how to manage traversing between the Forsaken and Usurper, and how to manage blood debt. Finally, we will dive into sideboarding, alternate card choices, and his expected metagame position.
There is so much going on Viserai’s textbox that it is worth taking some time to fully digest the things he does, as well as the things he asks of us in deckbuilding. First, we begin every game as Viserai, the Forsaken. On this side, every time we make 1 or more Runechants on either player’s turn, we banish the top card of our deck. Ideally, these cards will have blood debt and are playable from the banished zone, in order to generate card advantage. Additionally, once we have made 3 or more Runechants in a single turn, we will immediately traverse, flipping our hero over to the Viserai, Usurper side. Notably, traversing into Usurper is not optional, and it doesn’t necessarily require us to trigger the first ability three times. For example, making 3 Runechants at once with a card like Deadwood Dirge will cause us to banish 1 card and traverse.
Once we are on the Usurper side, we no longer get benefits for Runechants. Instead, we grant go again to our first attack action card with blood debt each turn. This effect is a static ability, meaning that should we attack with a card with blood debt and then subsequently create enough Runechants to traverse before the attack finishes resolving, that attack will gain go again, so long as we haven’t already played an attack action card with blood debt earlier in the turn. This interaction comes up a lot in our deck, especially with cards like Murmuring Gloomblade and Malefic Incantation granting Runechants when we attack. In fact, this interaction is so important that it is one we are going to try and do time and time again, as many of our most powerful turns will take advantage of creating Runechants to grant us card advantage and to help us traverse and get go again.
Usurper’s other ability says that if we have created or activated a Gate to i’Arathael this turn, we may traverse at the beginning of the end phase, returning us to Viserai, the Forsaken. I will put an emphasis that traversing back to Forsaken is optional, and sometimes you may wish to stay on the Usurper side to continue to have access to go again, but we will discuss this in more detail later, as managing Viserai’s traversal is extremely important and skill testing
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This combination of potential card advantage and extra action points is incredibly powerful, and trying to get access to both sides of Viserai’s hero as frequently as possible is where a lot of the power level lies. In order to leverage all aspects of Viserai’s hero abilities, he asks us for four main things that we need to balance in our decklist:
Runechant Generation – Ideally, we create Runechants one at a time to allow us to get up to three banishes per turn while on the Forsaken side. We also need to reliably be able to get to 3 Runechants in order to traverse and get go again.
Playable Blood Debt – Since we are banishing cards off the top of our deck when we make Runechants, we really want those cards to be ones we can easily play from the banished zone. This makes banishing cards akin to drawing cards and helps us not instantly fatigue ourselves. Playing cards from the banished zone also enables our weapon, Seven Sin Nebula, granting us a lot of bonus damage.
Gate to i’Arathael – These allow us to traverse back to our Forsaken side, granting us access to additional banishes and more potential card advantage. While traversing back is technically optional, many of our Shadow Runeblade cards are just okay on rate, and a lot of the hero’s power budget comes from getting some number of extra cards for ‘free’ from our hero ability. Because we can traverse both when we create a Gate as well as when we activate one, we don’t actually need that many total Gates, as each one can effectively allow us to traverse twice.
Non-playable Blood Debt – Technically this is not mentioned anywhere in Viserai’s text box and we can always activate a Gate on any blood debt card. However, the cards which aren’t naturally playable from the banished zone are more efficient than those that are, meaning we are leaving some value on the table if we don’t have a few use cases for our Gates. We have to be very careful with non-playable blood debt though, as getting them stuck in the banished zone, especially in multiples, can be very punishing.
I strongly believe that while there may be many options on how you can construct Viserai, the strongest builds will do a good job of balancing all four of these card types, as neglecting any of them is a big loss in potential value. You also may have thought by now that this is a lot of different things to balance, especially in addition to the traditional Runeblade balancing act of attacks and non-attacks, and you would be correct. Because Viserai asks so many different things of us, I have found that there is very little room for cards that do not fit at least one of these categories. In fact, our decklist contains only a handful of sideboard cards that do not fit in at least one of these categories, while many of them fulfill multiple needs the deck has.
Card Choices
In this section we will discuss the rationale for including various cards in our deck and take a look at the roles each card fills. We will also mention a few key interactions some cards have. Cards are grouped into a few main categories, which include Runechant generators, rune gate attacks, usurp attacks, Gate generators, non-playable blood debt, and go again sources. Some of these cards fit into multiple categories.
Runechant Generators
Runechants are extremely important to our deck’s core gameplan and function, so we play an abundant number of ways to create them. Malefic Incantation is easily the most important Runechant generator, since it essentially creates 1 each turn, so long as we can attack. It also stays on board, so it makes traversing and paying for rune gate cards much easier and more consistent. Runechant of Lust can help pay for multiple rune gate cards or create two instances of 1 Runechant when we usurp it, banishing 2 cards and getting most of the way to traversing. These are supplemented by other cards that create 1 Runechant, like Grasp of the Arknight, Murmuring Gloomblade, Otherworldly Sins, and Arknight Shard.
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Embrace Ursur not only offers a go again attack that doesn’t consume Usurper’s go again, but also makes a Runechant and allows us to banish cards from hand to either rune gate or enable our weapon. Become the Shadow Lord sacrifices the offensive value in exchange for being a blue 3 card that also creates a Gate, making it an excellent glue piece.
Banish from hand effects are great for enabling both rune gates and Seven Sin Nebula. Many of them, like Cull, Become the Shadow Lord, and Embrace Ursur fulfill other roles in the deck as well. We also supplement these cards with Ebon Fold and Shadowrealm Walker, which can also serve as Gate generation. These banish from hand effects are valuable for letting us store extra cards in our banished zone to setup for future turns, or to enable rune gate or Seven Sin Nebula.
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In addition to our cards which create a single Runechant, we have Deadwood Dirge and Revel in Runeblood, which can make 3 or 4 Runechants all at once, letting us instantly traverse to Usurper and to easily pay for our more expensive rune gate cards. Notably, Deadwood Dirge can also destroy Malefic Incantation or a Gate if needed. In this category we also have Arknight Descendancy, which can create Runechants when banished, either by being combined with a banish from hand effect or by banishing it off the top of the deck.
Finally, despite not being a Runechant generator itself, Mordred Tide can help supplement all our other effects, causing them to each create 1 additional Runechant each turn. This is particularly potent when combined with Malefic Incantation and other effects that make Runechants. Mordred Tide is also important insulation against Ripple Away, which is a very potent silver bullet opponents can play against us that we need to be aware of.
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Rune gate Attacks
Rune gate attacks are effectively 0-cost 6 attacks when we banish them off the top of our deck, so long as we make enough Runechants to rune gate them. Luckily, our deck is already flush with Runechant generation to fuel Viserai, the Forsaken. For rune gate attacks, we have chosen Vantom Wraith as an efficient 2-cost, as well as Widespread Destruction, and Widespread Annihilation, which cost 3 and 4 respectively. Despite being harder to resolve, the Widespread attacks allow us to threaten our opponent’s arsenal or hand, should they take damage before the chain link closes, making them extremely powerful disruptive threats. Notably, should we lose life to Arknight Descendancy’s banish trigger, instant speed arcane damage, or any other effect our opponent may have, these Widespread attacks will also cause us to banish when we close the chain.
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Usurp attacks + play-from-banished attacks
To supplement our rune gate cards, we play other cards which are also naturally playable from the banished zone, to make sure we have enough density of these types of cards that Forsaken’s ability is usually generating card advantage. Of these cards, we play lots of usurp attacks, as they also have good synergy with Runechants without needing the same quantity that our rune gate attacks do. Murmuring Gloomblade is a key threat, as it creates a Runechant on-attack and on-hit, while having an excellent rate. This card is a great glue piece, since it fills multiple roles, can really help our ability to traverse, and a single blue can pay for it as well as a 1-cost or sword swing. Cullingsong Gloomblade is a good 0-cost threat that also offers disruption. Bloodfrenzy Gloomblade (blue) and Demonbound Gloomblade (blue) are also included, not only to increase our threat density, but also to synergize with Looking for a Scrap.
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Other cards that aren’t usurp or rune gate but are still playable from the banished zone include Cull, which can be played both on our turn as well as our opponent’s turn so long as someone has lost life. Cull is a potent tool to slow down aggro decks and can also serve as a banish from hand effect, since it’s symmetrical. Alternatively, we can play it when our hand is empty to disrupt our opponent at no cost to ourselves. We also have Invert Existence, which can be a powerful sideboard card for Cindra’s daggers in response to her hero ability, Fai’s Phoenix Flame in response to his hero ability, or Shadow mirrors, where it can banish cards with blood debt. It’s also a blue that converts as 1-for-2 arcane, can be played after being banished off the top, and can even close the game on our opponent’s turn, so long as they have attacks and non-attacks. Just be aware that it’s not good into all heroes, and having no has a real cost, even if it is a blue.
Finally, we also have the namesake card of the set, Usurp the Shadow Throne. This is included as a sideboard card for fatigue oriented matchups, where in the late game we can look to setup an usurp attack into Usurp the Shadow Throne either from the banished zone or arsenal. This not only threatens deck damage, but also has a very nasty on-hit effect if we’ve managed to banish even just a few cards with effects like Widespread attacks or Invert Existence.
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Gate Generators + Non-playable Blood Debt
Gates are essential for our ability to traverse back to Viserai, the Forsaken. In particular, getting our first Gate is very important, as it ensures we can traverse and not get stuck with non-playable blood debt in the banished zone. In addition to the aforementioned Become the Shadow Lord, which hits almost every other category in our deck, we also have Open the Gate to i’Arathael, which has the unique effect of creating a Gate when it hits or is banished from hand or deck. Because Open the Gate to i’Arathael is non-playable blood debt, it will require the Gate it makes to clear itself, meaning it won’t really help you play other non-playable blood debt cards unless it hits. However, having the ability to create Gates by banishing it is very important for helping us traverse.
You can think of this card as the only Gate generator that we can’t accidentally banish and lose access to, making it an essential consistency piece. While playing it as a 1-for-4 from the banished zone isn’t exactly exciting, it’s still a free card, and can be played off a single blue or yellow into a sword swing as a 1-card-7 that also lets us traverse, which is quite solid. Otherwise, it can simply be slotted into a turn instead of a sword swing, should we wish to traverse. Additionally, the on-hit is quite meaningful for us, and while I wouldn’t rely on it, it is something our opponent needs to consider.
To round out our Gate generation, we have Shadowrealm Walker, which makes a Gate when we banish a Shadow card from our hand. This attack can be a bit awkward, as it’s non-playable blood debt when we banish it off the top, but it’s a great way to enable some pitchless rune gate turns when we’re Usurper. This is especially true if we already have Malefic Incantations in play or want to resolve Revel in Runeblood. Having a card other than Become the Shadow Lord to allow us to go positive on Gates when played from hand feels very important, and I’ve found this card to be a great way to do that. I’ve also enjoyed playing Shadowrealm Walker into Open the Gate to i’Arathael as a 2-card-8, creating 1-2 Gates.
As mentioned before, non-playable blood debt tends to be more efficient, so we want to make sure when we are using Gates we are getting some of that extra efficiency. Notably, these cards also all fulfill other roles, like Gate generation in the case of Shadowrealm Walker and Open the Gate to i’Arathael, or Runechant generation and pseudo-rune gate in the case of Arknight Descendancy. Generally, I try to save my Gates to target these cards specifically, unless I have an abundance of Gates, especially if it’s early in the game, because they are costly to leave in the banished zone.
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Go Again Sources
Our last category of cards are ones that help us go wide and have access to more than just Usurper or Spellbound Creepers as hand extenders. Go again attacks include Embrace Ursur and Looking for a Scrap. Looking for a Scrap is still experimental, but is very attractive in Viserai for its ability to banish a 1 usurp attack, which has the potential to attack for 3, and also enables Seven Sin Nebula. Afterwards, the usurp attack goes back to the graveyard where it can then be ‘scrapped’ again. At its floor, we get to attack for 5, into 1, into 3, off a blue, for a 2-card-9. We can easily add on to this turn with, for example, a rune gate attack, as Bloodfrenzy Gloomblade (blue) can get go again on its own if we have dealt damage this turn. In addition, we play Succumb to Temptation, which can be played as an instant if we have dealt arcane damage, not only granting us an action point, but also allowing us to get extremely powerful hand disruption the next time a Runeblade attack action card hits.
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Equipment
Runeblades are known for having access to powerful equipment, and Viserai is no exception, borrowing heavily both from his class pool as well as his Shadow talent pool. Viserai is far less rigid than other heroes in equipment selection, with few pieces that are truly mandatory. Instead, Viserai enjoys a wide variety of equipment choices to help ensure he is will equipped to deal with any foe who may be foolish enough to challenge him for the throne.
Seven Sin Nebula
Seven Sin Nebula offers an incredible rate of 1-cost 3 that even comes with the upside of creating a Runechant on-hit, comparing favorably with the now banned Reaping Blade that Runeblades of the past frequently leaned on. However, Seven Sin Nebula does come with the restriction of requiring us to play a card from our banished zone in order to be able to activate it. This is an excellent bit of extra value when we have access to an extra action point and resource, which we frequently find ourselves having after traversing to Usurper with fresh blood debt cards in our banished zone. While it is often very efficient to try to swing the sword as much as possible, sometimes you may be better off using your action point to clear blood debt, activate a Gate to traverse back to Forsaken, or to make use of Runechants to resolve a rune gate attack.
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Spellbound Creepers
Spellbound Creepers are an iconic Runeblade equipment which are the perfect fit for this style of Viserai deck. We have an abundance of non-attack actions to play as an instant to help us gain action points, and we also make plenty of Runechants to make it difficult for opponents to prevent us from keeping it around for an additional turn, where it can then either defend for 1 or be used again. In some aggressive matchups, these are fairly trivial to keep around for quite some time, whereas against some defensive blue-heavy decks we might just get a single use out of them. Regardless, they provide excellent value for us and work much better than a free option like Snapdragon Scalers, since many of our attacks cost 2 or more. Because Spellbound Creepers do such a great job of combining offense and defense, they are our legs of choice for every matchup.
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Fyendal’s Spring Tunic
Fyendal’s Spring Tunic is an equipment that needs no introduction and sees widespread play, as there are many situations where 1 is simply worth an entire card, and it can sometimes generate multiple in a single game before finally defending for 1. Our deck has plenty of 1-cost cards, and our weapon, Gates, and Spellbound Creepers also cost 1, so it’s generally not very hard to find situations where we can leverage 1 to great effect. Fyendal’s Spring Tunic generates a lot of extra value, especially in longer matchups.
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Dyadic Carapace
Dyadic Carapace both offers Temper 2 as well as Arcane Barrier 2, making it a mainstay for Runeblade decks, and Viserai is no different. We have lots of blues in our 80, so Dyadic Carapace gives us access to Arcane Barrier 3 using only two equipment slots, and we can also leverage the extra defense against aggressive decks where Fyendal’s Spring Tunic may be too slow or we might be threatened by on-hits. Dyadic Carapace isn’t flashy, but it’s an efficient and flexible piece of defensive equipment, earning it a rightful slot in our deck.
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Grasp of the Arknight
Grasp of the Arknight is yet another iconic piece of Runeblade equipment, granting excellent defense with Battleworn 2, while also giving us an activated ability to create a Runechant for 2. In addition to being an excellent resource sink and pairing nicely with all of our 1-costs, the Runechants give us a ton of utility, including banishing a card off the top of the deck, helping us traverse, and helping us pay for rune gates. I find Grasp of the Arknight provides a ton of value, especially in longer games, making it our arms of choice for many matchups. However, we do still pack a variety of other arms options as well.
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Vexing Quillhand
Vexing Quillhand is our Arcane Barrier 1 equipment of choice that also comes with the powerful activated ability to destroy it and create 2 Runechants for free, with go again! While this only banishes a single card when we are Forsaken, it is 2 of the 3 total Runechants we need in order to traverse, and is a huge step of the way towards paying for our rune gates. Usually we want to find a spot in the game to get value out of Vexing Quillhand that is more than just 2 damage. Just remember that you will lose access to Arcane Barrier 1 once you do! Sometimes this makes you very vulnerable to arcane damage endgames from heroes like Oscilio or other Runeblades, so choose when to use this equipment wisely.
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Reach of the Abyss
Despite Grasp of the Arknight offering excellent defense, Reach of the Abyss surprisingly outpaces it by a good degree in the right matchup. Banishing cards we defend with is extremely potent, since so many of our cards are playable from our banished zone, so Reach of the Abyss essentially allows us to defend with those cards for free! Sometimes banishing cards can even be an upside, as it may allow us to rune gate them or attack with Seven Sin Nebula. The sweet spot for Reach of the Abyss is usually defending with at least two cards, as this effectively represents 8 worth of value, and sometimes even offers even more added value in saved resources on rune gates or Seven Sin Nebula. While losing the 1 extra and the activated ability of Grasp of the Arknight can definitely be a real cost, I believe Reach of the Abyss has more than enough power to offset this cost against the right deck.
In general, we want to play Reach of the Abyss in aggressive matchups where we can reliably defend with two cards alongside it. In practice, this means we want to play it when the opposing hero is aggressive and either attacks for 8 or more fairly regularly, or has difficulty closing the combat chain, as Reach of the Abyss will banish defending cards on all chain links when the combat chain closes. This makes Reach of the Abyss an excellent tool against heroes like Levia, Olympia, Fai, Katsu, and Cindra.
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Face Purgatory
Face Purgatory is another excellent piece of defensive equipment, not only offering Blade Break 2, but also allowing us to have the very powerful ability to make our opponent discard a card and us draw a card when we defend with an attack action card and a non-attack action card alongside it. Getting full value out of all the defending cards, Face Purgatory’s , the drawn card, and the discard is actually quite challenging in the average game against most heroes. However, the ability is worth so much value that even if we just make use of the and draw effect, or just the discard effect but not the value, it is still very worth using. In a pinch, it can also be simply used just to defend for 2. Face Purgatory’s effect is especially powerful against decks that have tall attacks with go again, or want to play attack reactions.
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Ebon Fold
While Face Purgatory is a wonderful defensive piece of equipment, it does very little for us against defensive decks where we need to be the aggressor and create very large turns. Ebon Fold is great for this, as it allows us to pay 1 to banish a Shadow card from our hand and draw a card! This has excellent synergy both with our rune gate attacks, as well as Arknight Descendancy, which allows us to pay up to 3 for an equal number of Runechants when it enters the banished zone.
Ebon Fold also gives us some very welcome counterplay to the new powerful generic hate piece Circlet of Eternal End, which can turn a card in our banished zone face-down when it defends. Ebon Fold doesn’t actually prevent Circlet of Eternal End from using this ability, which is at its strongest when it flips our only banished rune gate or blood debt attack, possibly denying us a sword activation. Ebon Fold can potentially allow us to banish a replacement threat, while also giving us a new card in hand.
I have also quite liked this equipment against Oscilio, as many of the attack action Oscilio decks are too small for Face Purgatory to get good value, and against the all arcane variants its does nothing. By comparison, both Spellvoid 2 and the activated ability provide value into both versions of Oscilio, and provides us with a very effective hedge. I also have found Widespread Annihilation and Widespread Destruction to be key cards in those matchups because of the disruption they offer, so being able to reliably move them to the banished zone to be rune gated is very powerful.
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Playing Viserai
Viserai is a complex hero with a ton of depth and skill expression. I would encourage readers to carefully think through their lines of play, including what types of cards they can potentially banish when making Runechants (rune gate, usurp, non-playable blood debt, non-blood debt, etc). Any given hand has a multitude of ways it can be played, and choices around banishing cards from the top of deck, traversing to either side, playing banished cards, or choosing to activate a Gate can all have impacts that cascade into future turns. All of this is to say, don’t expect yourself to be a master of the deck right away, it’s okay to make mistakes and learn from them. I still feel like I am learning lots about how to correctly play the deck.
To summarize Viserai’s core gameplay loop, we always start as Forsaken, we want to create at least 3 Runechants so that we can banish cards, traverse, and leverage the go again from Usurper, which then in turn either lets us take advantage of Seven Sin Nebula or the cards we banished from making Runechants. As we start to run low on cards in our banished zone, we ideally want to either create or activate a Gate, which allows us to traverse back to Forsaken, where we can refill on banished cards and start the cycle again. Sometimes, we may traverse to Usurper then back to Forsaken in a single turn, and other times we may stay as Usurper for a while to make use of the go again and our banished zone. In general, we traverse between both sides quite frequently. I will discuss the importance of these decisions and give you guidelines for how to make them in the next section.
Ideally, when we are Forsaken, we want to make exactly 1 Runechant, three separate times, so we get to banish three cards and generate the most potential card advantage. Because we get so rewarded for making exactly 1 Runechant, resolving Malefic Incantation is extremely important in this deck when we get the chance. However, there is nothing wrong with only banishing one or two cards because we need access to go again, or because we’re creating multiple Runechants due to Mordred Tide, Deadwood Dirge, Arknight Descendancy, or Revel in Runeblood.
On turns where we can’t make the desired 3 Runechants, aim to set up by putting Runechant generators into arsenal or playing Malefic Incantation, so that it is easier to make 3 on the next turn. You may also consider just making 1 or 2 Runechants just to banish a few cards. Sending an attack without go again is also perfectly acceptable.
When we are Usurper, we often want to be making use of the cards in our banished zone when possible so that we don’t take too much damage from blood debt and can potentially swing our sword as well. Sometimes this allows us to create very large turns that push a ton of damage, and other times it means defending with attacks from hand so we can play the ones we banished earlier. However, you should remember that Gates can only be activated if they have a target with blood debt in the banished zone, so be careful not to clear all your blood debt without activating a Gate if you were hoping to be able to traverse back and have no way to create another Gate. Even if the card is already playable from the banished zone, we can still choose to activate a Gate, targeting it, if we wish to traverse. Additionally, rune gate attacks can be played for their cost should we target them with a Gate. It’s not the preferred way to play rune gate cards, but it can be useful in a pinch when we are short on Runechants.
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To Traverse or Not to Traverse?
Choosing whether we should traverse on any given turn is one of the biggest decisions we can make when playing Viserai, and getting the choice wrong can cost us an incredible amount of value and deeply impact our following turn. Should we choose to traverse to Forsaken but not be able to traverse back to Usurper on the following turn, we might lack go again and have difficulty fully converting our hand, especially if our opponent heavily defended. However, should we choose to stay as Usurper when we are low on blood debt, then create a bunch of Runechants, we could be missing out on up to three banishes, which could be up to three entire cards worth of value.
Both the go again and the card advantage can be very important, and there is no answer that is always going to be correct, so whenever we have the option to traverse back to Forsaken we should carefully consider it. These decisions are highly contextual, and to some degree there is no way to know for certain which choice will be correct, since it depends on our next hand. However, learning to analyze each situation and make the choice which is the best on average is very important and can greatly improve your ability to play the hero.
Here are some guidelines to help you make the decision on whether or not you should traverse:
How much blood debt do I have? – Generally when we end our turn with two or less banished blood debt cards, we start wanting to find ways to refresh it, so traversing to Forsaken gets more attractive. But if we have a lot of blood debt, say four or more, traversing to Forsaken may be very dangerous, as not only will we not have access to go again to play our blood debt, but we may risk banishing even more when trying to traverse back! In short, when low on blood debt we want to be Forsaken and when high on blood debt we want to be Usurper.
How much Runechant generation do I have? – Consider Malefic Incantation, Grasp of the Arknight, Vexing Quillhand, your arsenal, and your banished zone, then count the total number of Runechants you can create. Even just one way to make a Runechant in conjunction with Grasp of the Arknight gets you 2/3 of the way to traversing, and greatly increases your odds of being able to traverse on the following turn should you draw a blue. Deadwood Dirge in arsenal basically lets you traverse on-demand, as does Revel in Runeblood, so long as you draw another non-attack action. The easier we can traverse to Usurper next turn, the lower the risk of losing go again is.
Do I have banish from hand effects? – Cards like Embrace Ursur, Become the Shadow Lord, or Shadowrealm Walker can allow us to refill our banished zone, meaning even if we only have one or two blood debt cards, we may be able to refresh the banished zone using these cards. Generally having access to these cards makes staying as Usurper relatively more attractive.
If I don’t traverse to Forsaken now, how easy will it be on a later turn? – This is mostly important to think about if we have the opportunity to traverse and are emptying our banished zone (so we won’t have targets for Gates), or if we’re using our last Gate. This shouldn’t be the only factor we consider, but it might help us lean in one direction or the other if it feels close. However, if we’re putting a Gate generator into arsenal, traversing on the next turn may be very easy!
How much Runechant / Gate generation do I have left in my deck? – When considering how likely you are to find specific card types like Runechant generation or Gate generation on a future turn, consider your deck’s density of these effects. A good way to do this is to know how many of each effect you have in your deck, then check to see how many you have seen in your pitch, graveyard, and banished zone as a rough percentage. Then you compare this percentage to the percentage of your deck you have seen. This doesn’t have to be an exact calculation, even just having a rough sense of things is valuable and can help inform your decision making.
For example, you might think to yourself, “I’ve seen about 1/3 of my deck, and 1/2 of my Runechant generators, so I have a less than average chance to draw them, which means traversing to Usurper might be hard.”
Alternatively, “I’m halfway through my deck and I have only seen one card that makes Gates, I’m very likely to find a Gate generator to help me traverse back to Forsaken”.
Can I win the game if I stay as Usurper? – Occasionally, you might just know based on your arsenal and/or banished zone that you can close out the game next turn, so long as you have go again. Alternatively, you might be in a spot where you are quite behind and you really need to generate some card advantage to have a good shot at coming back. In that position, you should traverse to Forsaken and increase your variance.
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Another great way to help improve your decision making around traversing is to pay attention to the decision you made, and how it then played out. This isn’t a perfect science, and it is good to not rely too heavily on these results; sometimes you make the play that is correct more often than not and just get unlucky. However, paying attention to the decision you made, how it turned out, and how often you are right or wrong, and why you were right or wrong can be a good way to get feedback on your decision making. If you notice you are frequently getting the choice incorrect, are there other factors you can consider to help you improve your decision making? If you made the wrong choice, was it actually well thought out and you just got unlucky? Or did you take an unnecessary risk, or overlook something you could have thought about ahead of time?
A common pitfall I want to highlight is that when life totals are approaching lethal range, there can be a tendency to want to convince yourself to stay as Usurper because you avoid getting more blood debt, and you also have easy access to go again so you can continue to pressure the opponent’s hand. However, I think this is often not as attractive as it seems at first glance, particularly if we are getting low on blood debt. This is because even though we have good access to go again, without leveraging rune gates or Seven Sin Nebula, the efficiency of our turns is quite poor. Many of our attacks are simply 2-card-6’s or 1-card-4’s making it somewhat hard to go above 12 damage per turn. I’ve had many games where I stay as Usurper, repeatedly take their hand but can’t close the game, then eventually find an off turn that can’t pressure lethal and lose. Often, we actually need access to the cards on top of our deck to keep up on rate and do powerful enough things to actually close out the game.
Additionally, even though we are low on life and blood debt may be scary, so long as we aren’t actually at risk of dying to it, banished cards can actually help us stay alive, as paying 1 for a card gives us more room to defend with cards in hand while still threatening damage. Whiffing on go again at low life totals or taking on too much blood debt are definitely risks you should consider, but don’t underestimate just how powerful having access to extra cards are. Counterintuitively, this can be doubly true when we are behind and need to find ways to do very above rate things to catch up.
Managing Blood Debt
Blood debt is a very important resource, as it functionally extends the size of our playable hand but comes at a cost of life. Carefully managing blood debt is very important, and how to best do this can depend on the matchup as well as the game state. Against defensive decks, we may want to stock up several blood debt cards in our banished zone and aim to arsenal so we can create very large turns, especially if some of those cards have go again. Against more aggressive decks we may want to make sure we don’t take too much damage from blood debt, and may also want to consider parceling out once per turn to maximize the value we get out of Seven Sin Nebula, so that we can play small hands.
Additionally, the total amount of blood debt should inform our decision to either play multiple cards or conserve them. In most cases, we can clear about two blood debt attacks per turn, so choosing to lose 3-4 from blood debt might not only be a decision to lose 3-4 on the current turn, it could likely also be losing 1-2 on the subsequent turn. As a rule of thumb, when I have three or four blood debt cards I usually lean towards playing them out rather than attacking with Seven Sin Nebula, and when I have two or less I am much more willing to parcel it out slowly, or to try and traverse.
When considering how much life from blood debt we are going to lose, we should also consider how easy our blood debt is to clear. Expensive rune gate cards like Widespread Annihilation can be tricky to clear unless we have a lot of Runechant generation at our disposal, and non-playable blood debt can be extremely difficult to clear if we don’t have access to Gates.
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Sideboarding
Usurp the Shadow Throne seems to be a big shakeup to the current Classic Constructed metagame, so properly predicting how to tune our sideboard is also something that is difficult and likely to remain quite fluid. Additionally, while I feel quite confident about some sideboard cards and configurations, others feel far more experimental. In particular, I feel very good about our assertive 60-card configuration into other aggressive decks, and less confident about plans into more fatigue oriented decks.
Our deck is constructed as a 54-card main deck, with 17 non-equipment cards in the sideboard:
3x Cull – Extra disruption and playable blood debt density against aggro. A bit weak into control, as they will often empty their hand defending before we are able to Cull them.
3x Succumb to Temptation – Disruption and a source of go again to help us go wide.
3x Looking for a Scrap – Extra go again attack that also lets us banish playable blood debt attacks with go again in the form of Bloodfrenzy Gloomblade. Good when we need to be aggressive and create large turns. Has the downside of not having blood debt or contributing to any of the major categories of cards we care about, although it does enable our sword.
3x Mordred Tide – Good into control decks as a countermeasure to Ripple Away, that also adds a lot to our damage ceiling with Malefic Incantation or Runechant of Lust.
2x Invert Existence – Extra blue blood debt card that is naturally playable from the banished zone, but needs to be in the sideboard since not every deck has attacks and non-attacks, and it also has no . Can be played against most decks with reasonable targets and can also banish blood debt in Shadow mirrors, or banish key cards against Draconic Ninjas.
3x Usurp the Shadow Throne – Anti-control attack that offers a lot of deck damage and is also very hard to cover up once equipment is gone. Usually needs to be played from arsenal or banished zone. The on-hit is very powerful, as we tend to banish quite a few of our opponent’s cards over the course of the game, and can be very punishing heroes like Jarl, who banish their own cards.
Next, we will discuss a few of the common sideboard configurations I have, along with the rationale, and which heroes it applies to. It’s still very early on Viserai’s life cycle, so feel free to experiment both with different ways of sideboarding. This deck is a great starting point, but I am certain there is even more to be discovered.
Disrupting Assertive Decks
Side in 3x Cull and 3x Succumb to Temptation.
Consider siding in Invert Existence in place of other blues if it has targets. Arknight Shard can be sided out if we don’t have Grasp of the Arknight or we expect on-hits, otherwise you can take out 1x Demonbound Gloomblade and 1x Bloodfrenzy Gloomblade.
Spellbound Creepers, Dyadic Carapace, Face Purgatory. Choose arms according to whether we need Arcane Barrier 1, or if Reach of the Abyss can reliably banish two cards, otherwise default to Grasp of the Arknight. Against Oscilio, play Ebon Fold.
Use this plan against the mirror, Aurora, Fang, Arakni, Marionette, Boltyn, Cindra, Oscilio, Fai, Katsu, Levia, Rhinar, and Marlynn.
One of the things this list does extremely well is play good turn-to-turn value and put aggressive decks on the back foot through heavy damage output combined with consistent disruption. In total, we present 15 pieces of disruption, which in conjunction with seeing extra cards, thanks to Forsaken, means we will threaten cards from the opponent almost every turn. I think for aggressively leaning metagames this is a strong starting point for Viserai decks.
Going over Fatigue
Side in 3x Looking for a Scrap, 3x Mordred Tide, 2x Succumb to Temptation, and 3x Usurp the Shadow Throne.
Side in Invert Existence if it have targets (most fatigue decks do, but I would avoid playing it into Teklovossen, since you don’t want to banish Evos).
Ebon Fold, Fyendal’s Spring Tunic, Grasp of the Arknight, Spellbound Creepers.
Use this plan against Teklovossen, Arakni, Huntsman, Zyggy, and Guardians.
This setup boards up to 65-67 cards to help offset the cards we banish and to give us more runway against these fatigue decks. We still play the game normally, but try to play towards big 5-card hands with blood debt in the banished zone to go over what they can defend. Be aware of Ripple Away as a powerful hate card that can stop us from making Runechants to traverse. Mordred Tide, or Revel in Runeblood / Deadwood Dirge from arsenal with Spellbound Creepers can sometimes offset this. Remember that Ripple Away only stops Runechants from action cards.
Try to keep Widespread Annihilation and potentially Arknight Descendancy in the deck, as you can still present a surprising amount of damage using Usurper’s go again. This disruption in the endgame helps prevent the opponent from taking a pivot and interacting with your Usurp the Shadow Throne setup.
In the endgame, look to resolve Usurp the Shadow Thrones by getting them into the banished zone or arsenal and activating Grasp of the Arknight into a cheap usurp attack. We need our deck to be basically all blues for this. Looking for a Scrap can help banish an usurp card to set this up. You are most likely to land this when they are out of equipment and defense reactions.
Hedgeboard for Midrange
Side in 3x Cull, 3x Looking for a Scrap, 3x Mordred Tide, and 3x Succumb to Temptation.
Side in Invert Existence if it has targets or 2x Usurp the Shadow Throne.
Face Purgatory, Fyendal’s Spring Tunic, Grasp of the Arknight, Spellbound Creepers.
Use this plan against Gravy Bones, Ira, Tuffnut, and Warriors.
This provides us with some of the anti-fatigue tools and a few extra cards, without bogging down our deck quite as much. Useful for heroes which provide more pressure, where Usurp the Shadow Throne might be too slow to resolve reliably. You can play more turn-to-turn if they are playing a value game, or set up more if they are defending out.
Other Options
One of the challenges of building Viserai is there are so many attractive cards that it is very hard to fit everything, and almost every card has merits that make them difficult to justify cutting. While I’m confident about most of the card choices, it is still early days, and I expect Viserai deckbuilding to change a lot over time. I won’t go through the entire laundry list of playable cards, but here are some options I consider to have strong potential:
Malefic Incantation (yellow) – This card is stronger than Runechant of Lust in the abstract sense, but is weaker against Ripple Away.
Bloodfrenzy Gloomblade (red) – Similar role to Looking for a Scrap, except it has blood debt and defends for 3. However, go again is conditional and doesn’t provide fuel for the sword.
Machinations of Dominion – Go again, 3, blue, and overpower paired with Usurp the Shadow Throne is very appealing but is very hard to set up.
Eloquent Eulogy – Similar cost curve to Cullingsong Gloomblade. Deals 1 more damage since it doesn’t need to usurp, but also doesn’t disrupt. Also doesn’t help resolve Usurp the Shadow Throne or Runechant of Lust. Eloquence and Cull doesn’t come up much.
Putrid Stirrings (red) – Non-attack action playable from the banished zone, which helps enable Revel in Runeblood. We probably want at least 3 more rune gate attacks to justify this.
Widespread Ruin – 2-cost rune gate. Has upside if you manage to trigger Arknight Descendancy on the same turn, since you get to banish a card from your deck. Banishing an opponent’s card could also be relevant in fatigue matchups, especially with Usurp the Shadow Throne. However, it’s a downside against Shadow heroes, which is why I swapped to Vantom Wraith.
Shadowrealm Ripper – 1-cost 7 banish from hand, non-playable blood debt. Very powerful, especially as Usurper, but hard to find space for.
Circlet of Eternal End – If the mirror becomes very popular.
Gauntlet of Sword and Sorcery – Can ping allies, seems useful into Gravy Bones.
Aether Ironweave – Potential offensive option for fast matchups where you don’t need from Dyadic Carapace.
Metagame Position
Between the unsolved nature of Viserai, the big shakeup to Classic Constructed with the release of Usurp the Shadow Throne, the unbanning of Brand with Cinderclaw, and banning of Entwine Lightning, it is very hard to say exactly where Viserai will land overall. Many heroes have gotten considerable support and look like they could be positioned to be powerful contenders in the upcoming metagame, including Cindra, Levia, Boltyn, Fang, and Marlynn. Additionally, Oscilio has lost some equity both due to the changes to start of game procedure, as well as Entwine Lightning. Exactly how the new metagame will be shaped and how Viserai will be positioned remains to be seen at Calling: Atlanta and Pro Quest: London.
In this deck’s current form, I feel like Viserai ranges from favored to evenly matched into other aggressive decks, as his excellent equipment, heavy disruption, and strong damage output can keep up with very powerful draws from other aggro decks. However, due to some inherent variance baked into banishing the top card of your deck, the outcome of the game can swing wildly depending on your banishes and whether you manage to find your Runechant generators early and often. I also expect midrange decks with lower blue counts to be quite reasonable matchups for Viserai, as they don’t really have the blues required to be able to effectively prevent damage and still have to contend with his disruption, which can function off arcane damage alone with Widespread attacks and Cull. The combination of disruption and great value per turn is very powerful against any hero looking to play assertively.
Figuring out how to beat blue-heavy decks that defend well seems to be the harder problem to solve. Viserai is prone to fatigue, due to dealing lots of arcane damage and many of his cards being a bit below rate in exchange for being playable from the banished zone. The Usurp the Shadow Throne plan has been solid, but is still in the process of being refined. One of the challenges with solving these matchups is that Viserai has so many different ways he can be played, and your decisions can drastically alter how the game plays out. So not only can the cards in deck potentially change, so can the ways in which you choose to set up into fatigue.
I personally believe that Viserai should be good into fatigue, since he has access to free go again when he is Usurper, combined with the ability to easily play 6-card hands thanks to blood debt attacks. However, I think it may be quite challenging to find the correct build as well as learning how to pilot masterfully. Take Chane as an example, a hero who shared a lot of the same DNA – extra cards and action points – was often weak to fatigue in the hands of newer pilots, but very difficult to actually fatigue when piloted by an expert.
Another factor that will greatly affect Viserai’s metagame position is the prevalence of various silver bullets in the format. In particular, Circlet of Eternal End is incredibly potent against him as a way to remove a key attack from his banished zone. Additionally, Ripple Away is very powerful, as it lines up extremely well into his desired mode of creating Runechants – one at a time. This instant speed effect can prevent him from creating multiple Runechants, which can stop him banishing cards and traversing to get go again. There are also other sideboard hate cards like Violent Gusto and Exorcism. Exactly how widely each of these cards will be played will have an impact on Viserai’s overall performance.
Viserai is some of the most fun I’ve had with Flesh and Blood in quite some time, and I would strongly encourage you to try him out at your local Armory event, and consider taking him to a Pro Quest or Calling near you.
card that also creates a Gate, making it an excellent glue piece.
attacks when we banish them off the top of our deck, so long as we make enough Runechants to rune gate them. Luckily, our deck is already flush with Runechant generation to fuel Viserai, the Forsaken. For rune gate attacks, we have chosen Vantom Wraith as an efficient 2-cost, as well as Widespread Destruction, and Widespread Annihilation, which cost 3 and 4 respectively. Despite being harder to resolve, the Widespread attacks allow us to threaten our opponent’s arsenal or hand, should they take damage before the chain link closes, making them extremely powerful disruptive threats. Notably, should we lose life to Arknight Descendancy’s banish trigger, instant speed arcane damage, or any other effect our opponent may have, these Widespread attacks will also cause us to banish when we close the chain.
is simply worth an entire card, and it can sometimes generate multiple 
for an equal number of Runechants when it enters the banished zone.